Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Beyond Leadership

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step into people leadership (or if you’re looking for articles to send someone else…).

3 Steps to Winning A Best Place to Work Award
A wind chime.

An umbrella.

A large corporate hooray party.

Office snacks on demand, at anytime, for free.

A bonus check. One that at the age of 23 was a shockingly large one.

All are things I’ve experienced in my career during a corporate change management project that constituted employee recognition and perks. Despite the fact that the umbrella was expensive (for an umbrella) because of its cute designer label and the bonus check as I mentioned was large for the context of my 23 year old, living paycheck to paycheck mind (so much so that my new husband and I actually went out to dinner at a place we never thought we’d be able to afford), none of them really positively affected how I felt about the job, or the hours and hours I put into the work and the project that was taking place.In short, they didn’t create engagement for me.

By some standards, all the perks and recognition could have been seen as the things that make a great employer and drive employee performance. And in some workplaces, they might be. But as the June 2015 cover story, What Makes a Great Employer, of HR Magazine states, “The foundation of a great workplace lies in a culture of trust and engagement that unites management and the workforce in a common vision that’s not only about success but that describes the type of organization an employer wants to be.”

The article later goes on to state, “Indeed, the leaders of these companies talk about their people not as employees who can be satisfied with the right compensation package, but as colleagues who are invested in the business.”

When the department managers brought around the bonus checks in my example, two of the three didn’t know my name. They didn’t know what role I was playing in the project or what contribution I had made (or had not made) to it. They were just passing out bonus checks.

In order to help people feel invested in the business, organizations need to:
1. Build an intentional culture. Define the purpose and vision of the organization and how each job and therefore each person impacts that purpose and takes it on as his or her own. This vision and purpose should be imbedded into all people management aspects- selection, training, evaluation and compensation and most importantly lived out through leadership.
2. Communicate with intention. Purpose and impact should be communicated regularly and should involve two-way communication that seeks to gain constant feedback from employees on what is going well and what isn’t.
3. Live Transparent. Communicating with intention should foster transparency, but beyond communicating the message of the business and how each person fits into this purpose, transparency should include openness about financial and operational issues and should involve each employee feeling comfortable coming to his or her manager about any issue because the manager is seen as both approachable and accessible.
These are the larger pieces of the puzzle that lead to respect and trust that foster empowerment and employee engagement. Without them, you can have the greatest perks in the world, but they will never lead to an organization winning a great place to work award. At the end of the day, an organization wins this type of award because employees feel valued.

How does your organization create an intentional culture?

If you like this post, you may also like:

What You Pay Does Matter

The Best Way to Thank Employees is to Make it Personal
October 7, 2015
What You Pay Does Matter

“$11.32 an hour,” she said. “That’s what many people can earn sitting on their couch. How am I supposed to encourage them to get off the couch when many of the jobs they qualify for don’t pay that?”

This statement came from a frustrated state career center worker tasked with getting individuals off federal and state assistance through a job placement program.

I could turn this conversation into a political post, but I won’t go there. Instead, I’d like to focus on how it illustrates a basic premise of motivation.

I’m going to spend the next few weeks talking about how to give people what they really want out of work (motivational factors) through performance management and maximization practices, but let’s face it, when I do this, I’m making the assumption that a basic living wage, or even a wage that is competitive with the wage someone could go across the street and earn with the skill set they have, (a hygiene factor) is provided in all workplaces I’m addressing. I can talk all day long about how meaningful work leads to performance maximization, but if that meaningful work doesn’t meet basic needs, or if basic needs can be met by, well doing nothing, then people are going to turn to being unproductive or turn to walking across the street for the higher wage. They are going to sit on the couch either literally or metaphorically by the way the show up to work and well, do just about nothing, or by taking their skills and going elsewhere.

It goes back to one of the basic premises of workplace (or well really any place) motivation that drives behavior: hygiene vs. motivational factors. Thanks to Herzberg, we have this tried and true theory that tells us if you really want to get the most out of people, you need motivational factors in the workplace like challenge, autonomy, creativity, etc.- basically all things that lead to meaningful work- to actually have the power to truly motivate someone.

However, hygiene factors keep people from being dissatisfied. And a lack of dissatisfaction is necessary for the motivational factors to work. Someone may be overwhelmingly content with the work they do, but if you don’t pay them enough to meet a certain standard of living, that oftentimes they compare to others around them that are doing the same or similar work, the motivational factors won’t work at least in the long run.

So before you go giving someone autonomy and meaning in their work and assuming that will keep people satisfied at the least or motivated at the most, look at how much you are paying. Get out your local wage survey and examine if your wages are competitive with the competitor across the street and around the world. Goodness help us all when the competitor across the street ends up being the federal assistance program (okay, maybe I did have to get a little political).

When was the last time you examined your wage practices?

October 1, 2015
5 Questions to End the Slow Painful Death of Death by Meetings

In a leadership training class on communication in the workplace, I had one participant tell the group that meetings at his company were the biggest waste of time. When probed as to why, the basic gist of it came down to two reasons:

1. No one knows why the heck a meeting has been called and/or why they need to be there

2. Nothing results from the meetings

Because of this dialogue as well as other feedback we had received, we started incorporating a segment on effective meetings into our standard Communication Outline lineup.

Whether you are dealing with these two major meeting issues or just want to sharpen the saw on facilitating effective meetings, here is a checklist of questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you even need to have a meeting? Is there a more effective way to communicate and/or make decisions?

2. If a meeting is needed, what is the meeting’s objective? Clearly outline an agenda that meets this objective and send it out to all participants ahead of time. While in the meeting, stick only to topics related to the objective. If a topic comes up outside the scope of the meetings objective, politely redirect the conversation back to the objective and remind people you are doing so out of respect for everyone’s time.

3. Who really needs to be there? We often include people because we don’t want to hurt feelings and/or we simply don’t take the time to think through who needs to be at the table. Only include those who are truly needed. In the case where decisions need to be made in a meeting, the smaller the group the better.

4. Did the meeting result in decisions, action items and timelines centered-round the meeting’s objective?

5. Did you put in place a mechanism to follow-up on the action items and timelines set forth in the meeting?

August 19, 2015
2 Steps to Keep People from Quitting

Do you know the number one reason why people quit a job? It’s not for more money or better benefits or advancement opportunities. People may cite these factors as a reason for leaving in an exit interview or casual conversation, but what most likely led them to look elsewhere in the first place is because of a bad boss. As a Harvard Business Review article stated, “Studies have consistently shown that having a bad manager or a poor relationship with one’s manager is a top reason an employee quits.”

Yep, most likely your number one reason for turnover is bad leadership, especially at the frontline level. And how much does turnover cost? Most studies report between 150-300% of the person’s annual salary depending on the position. Ouch.

However, in the same Harvard Business Review article, only 12% of survey respondents said they currently invest sufficiently in the development of frontline managers.

So one of the best ways to nip a turnover issue in the bud and to potentially gain a competitive advantage over competitors is to fix your leadership issues, with the greatest bang for your buck being at the frontline level. Here are two steps to do just that:

1. Identify, assess and select frontline leadership talent based on skills needed to effectively lead and develop others, not skills needed to perform successfully in the doer role. The classic Peter Principle states the people are often promoted to their level of incompetence. Most frontline leaders are promoted to a supervisory role because they are good at the doer role, not because they are equipped with the skills to be effective leading others.

Whether you are hiring someone externally or promoting from within, you need to assess both the leadership potential of the person (skill) as well as the desire to be in a leadership role (will). As Kris Dunn said in one of his all-to truthful and to-the-point performance management posts at HR Capitalist, “That makes hiring people (leaders) – who are comfortable with the gray and understand the value of taking many small actions towards a goal with no guarantee of success – one of the most important things you can do today.” Find out if the person can lead others in a gray world and if he/she actually wants to.

If you want some tips on what dimensions you need assess potential leadership talent for, give us a shout out and we can help. Kris Dunn’s post just cited has some food for thought on this, and entrepreur.com can help you get you started in thinking about key traits to evaluate.

2. Teach frontline leaders the skills they need to be effective in a management role. We often promote people to their level of incompetence because we throw them to the wolves as a new leader and expect them to come out alive. What often happens is we make no investment in cultivating the new skills needed be effective at our organization and then are surprised when they fail.

Doing this before someone is even promoted and/or hired into the role is imperative. For example, we have a company we love working with that calls us to come and do one-on-one leadership coaching/training with anyone before they are promoted into a supervisory role. You can’t be promoted without this step in the process.

Developing and deploying a leadership development training plan at an individual and company level in order to effectively transition people from doer to leader then ensure people maintain and grow in effective leadership skills is an ongoing effort. Development plans are also a great way to facilitate succession planning and foster employee engagement.

If you want more tips on strategies for putting together effective development plans, you might like these posts:

3 Steps to Better Leadership

Get a Leadership Development Game Plan

What has been your number one strategy to keep people from quitting? Does it involve leadership development?

August 18, 2015
Leadership Tips for Teachers: Leading the Next Generation

Back to the classroom! As summer is coming to an end, teachers and students are gearing up for another school year. While school supplies and new sneakers are on the list for back to school, we encourage teachers to consider adding sharpening their leadership skills to the list.

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” Sheryl Sanberg

What a great motto for teachers to consider! In your quest to lead the next generation, we recommend the following leadership tips:

Build relationships with your students. Be genuinely concerned about their interests in and outside of the classroom. This is a great way to build trust and open the lines of communication. And, without even realizing it, students are learning to do the same. A great quality for leaders is relationship building.

Involve students in the learning process. Students are more likely to enjoy learning if they have input in the process. Give them a choice of assignments or maybe even the due date on assignments once or twice this year.

Lead by example. Take the lead as a learner. Continuous learning is always a component of being a good educator. Keep students in the loop on what professional or personal development you are working on this year.

Be an encourager. No matter what background students come from or how successful they are in academics or sports, they all need encouragement. Great leaders are encouragers. Encourage your students and encourage them to encourage each other.

For more insight into leadership, check out these post from The Point Blog:

10 Books Leaders need to be Reading

Top 10 Leadership Quotes

Establishing Leadership as a High School or College Student

August 13, 2015